Solstice

Solstice Party Bonfire

What a fun time we had at our Solstice Party.  Today is longer than yesterday and that is something to celebrate!!  We invited a few of our friends and 45 of them showed up bearing food and drinks and joy.  The weather totally cooperated with a crisp, still night.  Just what we wanted.

John preparing the LED balloons

We constructed a short walk around the property and marked it with light up balloons.  I think these things are pretty cool.  As I was collecting them this morning they are still lit and on our test one it stayed lit for over 24 hours.  The packaging promises 15 hours.  I'll get more of these in the future for sure!

Two helpers?

These two helpers did a lot of the preparations with collecting limbs and moving wood from our backyard burn pile out to the bonfire spot in the front yard.  We cleaned and transformed John's workshop into a buffet and warmup area.  Part way into the evening a good crowd of folks showed up in there to warm up and with a quick turn on of the bullet heater, the space was toasty enough in no time.  We enjoyed the food and were surprised that with little to no planning, the guests seemed to bring just the right combinations of desserts and appetizers and hearty items like soup and meats, warm drinks of cider and wassail and cold drinks of hard cider and more.  "Mitten food" I'd said when asked and that is how it went.  So much fun.

Wish Balloon

We set off a bunch of wish balloons.  We provided paper and encouraged people to toss their written regrets into the fire.  We also had fire colorants to add to written wishes and encouraged people to toss those in as well and watch the colors as they did so.

Away it goes

Good Time with good friends

I think this guy had a lot of fun in the setup and in the party itself.  We may need to repeat this event in the future.

One happy hubby